Mail downloads all messages– how to stop it

Using OS 10.9.1 now, but this behavior is for previous OS versions, as well.
I use Mail with Yahoo IMAP, and it downloads all messages to my hard drive. Can I set it not to do that? The preferenences are set to " Check for new messages manually" and have been for years, but it still downloads every message. Is the "checking" process independent of the downloading of messages? I kind of thought I could control these two processes. In other words, can I set Mail to download only the messages that are less than one year old or to show the messages, but not download them? I know I can use the web to view without downloading, but here in China, the web is sometimes "off" for Yahoo, while a mail client can still show Yahoo email, so it is often necessary to use the Mail app to see email. I just don't need them saved to my hard drive.

I was searching to see if Apple Mail and Yahoo Imap downloads everything when I came across your post! While I like that, it would be good if someone could tell us where the setting/option is for it.
Perhaps in Yahoo itself? Nah! That doesn't make sense. It should be on the client side (if I have my terminology correct!)

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How do i get thunderbird to download all messages?

how do i get thunderbird to download all messages?

Not sure what you are asking. I use yahoo for my email address. My cell phone can get the messages. They are marked 'read'. Later when I want to download emails to Thunderbird, it does not, because messages are mark read, and Thunderbird only downloads 'new' messages, aka already read.

My iphone says ive got 3.9gb of messages saved in usage, but ive deleted all messages. how do i find these saved messages

my iphone says ive got 3.9gb messages saved in usage, but ive deleted all messages. how can this be . someone please help

kathryn143 wrote:
my iphone says ive got 3.9gb messages saved in usage, but ive deleted all messages. how can this be . someone please help
Firstly you DO NOT have to do a factory reset / wipe device, it is simply not required to get the space back!!
Mine had 3GB and I just got rid of it all, here is how:
METHOD ONE:
Make a backup in iTunes
open iBackupBot (Google it)
Go to the relevant backup
Click on Multimedia File Manager and click on the other Multimedia files tab
Sort by filename by clicking the Filename tab
Find MediaDomain/Library/SMS/Attachments and highlight all of them, then press delete. You can also click to export to a folder of your choice, if you want to save them that is.
Then go to System Files>MediaDomain>Library>SMS>Attachments
They will be all listed here, highlight them all and press delete
Then just restore that backup using iTunes!
Tadaa! Space recovered, your messages are still there but without the attachments! METHOD TWO:
Backup your device in iTunes and then to iCloud
Go to Settings>iCloud and toggle Documents & Data to OFF
Then do a 2nd backup to iTunes and iCloud
Then restore the device from iCloud and the message attachments should be gone, turn Documents & Data back on again in the settings
PLEASE NOTE: Method two is a much longer process but some users may feel more comfortable with this method.
P.S You may want to make two backups in case you get any of the above steps wrong, but it is simple to follow the above and not do anything wrong!
P.P.S You could also just go through every single conversation and delete the attachments one by one, but if you have hundreds or thousands of attachments, this will take a VERY LONG TIME!!!

How to stop mail downloading ALL of my hotmail emails

Basically I am setting up Mail, and it is downloading ALL of my hotmail emails... there's 1623 of them! How can I stop this? Perhaps letting it only download emails from the past 2 weeks etc?

What version of [Mac] OS X are you running on your Mac? (Your profile says iOS 7.0.1, but that system is for iPhones and iPads, not Macs.)
If you are running a recent version of OS X, Mail should have a mailbox group named "FLAGGED" in the left sidebar. Click on it to view all flagged messages; click on one of the flag colors listed under it to view messages flagged with that color.

Why is mail downloading all my old hotmail emails and how can i stop it?

I just got a new macbook pro retina and set up my mail accounts including my @hotmail.com address. (i did this on the standard mail app)
Now it's downloading ALL my hotmail emails on my macbook and marking them as unread.
I don't want this, how can I stop it from downloading thousands more old mails?

Do you have an app that is trying to download? If you have one it will constantly ask for your password until it is finished. (assuming you lost connection and it has to reconnect.)

How do I download all messages from server to my Mac Mail inbox?

Good evening.
I'm new to Mail.
All my email messages are stored on my provider's server. I can access them with my previous (and archaic) email program.
I would like to delete (already done) and reload all current messages back to my G4 Mail program.
"There must be something easy here........"
How?

Mail 2.1.3
================
Thanks for your reply.
It is a POP2 account.
All messages are stored on their server.
Outgoing mail service: smtpauth.valley.net
Does this lead you to any resolution?

Mail downloading all 800000 messages from Yahoo

So I installed Mountain Lion and set up my Yahoo! Mail account so that I could receive incoming messages in notifications center and sync my notes to my iPhone. Now Mail says it is downloading all 800000 messages from my mailbox. I've had this account for like 10 years and I like to keep all of my messages. Is there really no way to limit how many messages Mail downloads? The iPhone does this fine. Since the account is IMAP too, if I delete messages in mail it deletes them from the server. I guess I'll have to make an archives folder and move stuff from my inbox there and not sync it.
Also, my notes are not syncing with my iPhone...My iPhone is set to sync to yahoo notes, but when I clicked notes for iCloud it made me set up a @me account. Do I need to update to iOS 5.1 for notes sync to work with my iPhone?

RGH!
So, I followed the advice on the other link (deleting the downloaded messages info file), and even deleted my whole sent messages.imapmbox and rebuilt it, but my computer keeps downloading all 7500 or so sent messages over and over (more or less every time I start up Mail after the computer has been shut down). The sent messages box keeps growing and growing until I rebuild. On my MBP the folder is 5GB or so, and currently the one on my (problem) MacPro is 14gb and will surely be bigger before the weekend is out.
Another thing: If I try to stop the messages from downloading (by clicking on the little 'x' next to the progress bar in the 'Mail Activity' window, then it just ADDS the 7500 messages again onto the total to be downloaded (meaning 15,000 messages downloading and the 22,500 if I try to cancel again)
This is highly frustrating, and potentially damaging to my system drive if I fail to keep tabs on the folder.
Please, any other ideas/suggestions?

How to download ALL messages from server - not just NEW messages?

Good evening.
The only pulldown menu options I find are for NEW messages.
How can I retrieve ALL messages from the email server? (Yes they are all there).
Thanks for your time.

Did you try "WebMail to goto your mail server & Mark all Messages as Unread?", as I mentioned before?
On the Server is where it's kept as to which ones have already been downloaded. I think marking the Unread should do it.

HT1277 Mail, IMAP, Yahoo! Any way not to download all messages?

I love the way my Yahoo Plus mail account syncs with my iPad's Mail program...it all syncs so smoothly.
In trying to set up my Macbook's Mail program to do the same thing, I realized I need to change it to IMAP. When I did so, it started to download all 15,000 old messages that I have on the Yahoo servers. Is there any way to only download the newer messages, or do I have to face the music and clean up my Yahoo account?
Joe
(I'm not sure why this support page forced me to choose a community -- my closest choice was OS 10.6)

Sorry, but Gmail does not currently have that ability, they are looking into adding it in the future.
Mulder

Why doesn't Apple mail download Gmail messages that were sent to myself?

When I e-mail myself to my Gmail address, the message sits in the Gmail inbox but Apple
Mail doesn't download it.
Mail downloads every other message in the Gmail inbox, but not the ones i've addressed to myself to my Gmail address.
Any ideas for why this is happening?

Gmail POP access doesn’t work like a normal POP mail server would. Here are some of its idiosyncrasies:
1. Messages downloaded by any conventional POP mail client are marked as downloaded at the server (but not as read on the web), and no longer available to either the same or any other POP mail client.
2. To make already downloaded messages available for POP access again, you must go to Gmail’s Settings > Forwarding and POP page, select Enable POP for all mail, and click Save Changes, which causes everything (and I mean everything) still on the server to be downloaded again.
3. The Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Remove copy from server settings have absolutely no effect on the messages stored on Gmail’s server. Gmail ignores any requests to delete messages from the server made by a POP client. What happens to the messages on the server after a POP client has downloaded them is determined by Gmail’s Settings > Forwarding and POP > When messages are accessed with POP setting alone. In the case of Gmail (and only in that case), I recommend turning OFF Remove copy from server in Mail, so that Mail doesn’t even try to remove any messages from the server, regardless of whether you do actually want already downloaded messages to be removed from the server after some time or not.
4. Messages sent using the web interface will be downloaded by your POP mail client as if they were received messages. Although this may seem weird, it's good because it allows archiving all messages locally in Mail, regardless of how they were sent — as long as you don't access the same Gmail account with more than one POP mail client, that is. You can set up a rule in Mail to automatically route those messages to the appropriate Sent mailbox (or to any other mailbox for that matter) if that's what you want.
5. Messages sent using a POP/SMTP mail client such as Mail are also treated as if they were incoming messages for POP purposes, just as in #4. What prevents them from being downloaded is that Gmail marks them as already downloaded immediately. Since they’re on the server nonetheless, already sent messages would be downloaded together with all the other messages on the server if proceeding as described in #2.
6. A particular case of #5 are messages sent to yourself. Instead of putting a copy of the sent message in the server’s Inbox and making it available for download, both the sent and the “received” message on the server are actually one and the same, and hence, cannot be downloaded via POP for the reason explained in #5.
7. Gmail allows POP accounts to be set up in a special way that avoids some of these issues while introducing others. If you only need POP access to the last 30 days of mail, you may configure Mail in “recent mode”, as described in Using POP on multiple clients or mobile devices. Configuring the account this way would allow Mail to download messages marked by Gmail as already downloaded (and download messages sent to yourself in particular), but it would also cause all sent messages (not just messages sent to yourself or through webmail) to be downloaded as if they were received messages.

I get slow script message how do stop this ?

I get a slow script message how do I stop this ? I read to open terminal app. in utilities folder then cut and paste message to add debug but can't figure how to do that

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We're users here and don't speak for "Apple Inc."
If you haven't already tried again and been able to successfully connnect, try again. If necessary, Quit Mail, and re-open it.
Some errors aren't caused by anything we're doing wrong, or problems with our equipment.
Major web service providers like Yahoo! experience 'downtime' now and then, sometimes planned, sometimes unplanned.
During the time you posted your question (about 18 hours before I post this message with the chart) Yahoo was 'down' as indicated by end-user reports, and illustrated by the colorful bands in the chart below.
www.downrightnow.com is just one of several places where the downtime of popular internet destinations is tracked.

Mail marks all messages as important?

Can I change this. Thanks.

Exactly. If a couple has both (all) of their email accounts configured on a Mac running Mavericks, so that they can both check their email on that Mac…..
Mavericks Mail will mark ALL copies of an email as read in ALL email accounts configured on that Mac, regardless of which account “reads” the email. Worse yet, it does matter what email server(s) host those accounts. If those email accounts are on an iMAP email server, the messages will appear as read on all other devices configured with any of those accounts — i.e. the email will appear as read on any other Mac, iPad, iPhone, PC….
And as you noted, marking the email as unread only effects that one account. In other words, Mail marks the message as read in all accounts configured on a Mac when you read it in any account. But subsequently marking it as unread in that account, does NOT mark it as unread in any other account.
So a considerate spouse should check the email header of every email they read, to see if the address list contains their spouses email account(s) and go to that account to mark it as unread. Or they can sleep on the couch that night — their choice:(
Note: Mail in iOS 7 on the iPhone/iPad does NOT work this way. It only marks the email as read in the account where it was actually read.
BTW This is just one of many inconsistencies in how Apple’s basic applications (e.g. Mail, Calendars, Contacts, etc.) function in Mavericks - Mac vs iOS7 - iPhone vs iOS7 - iPad. And most of these inconsistencies can not be easy explained away based on screen size or mouse/keyboard vs touch interface. You really have to wonder whether these Apple software development teams ever really talk to one another.
—GetRealBro

Download all messages

I recently removed my exchange email account by mistake. When I re-added it, my inbox and sent folder, ... in fact all my email history... only downloaded the most recent messages. I know that historically you could check an "all messages" option in Mail preferences, but that option seems to have disappeared in the current release. Help would be apprecaited!

Do you have a backup you could restore the messages from?
If so, make your user library visible, select Mail/V2/Account, then go into your backup.
Hold down the option key while using the Finder "Go To Folder" command. Enter ~/Library/Mail/V2.
If you prefer to make your user library permanently visible, use the Terminal command found below.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/04/show-library-directory-in-mac-os-x-lion/
You might want to bookmark the command. I had to use it again after I installed 10.8.2. I have also been informed that if you drag the user library to Finder it will remain visible.

Yosemite apple mail select all messages in conversation

It appears that
Mail/View/Select/All Messages In This Conversation
no longer works. The message list UI appears to indicate there are multiple messages in a conversation (they are highlighted, but not selected), but the above listed menu item is greyed out, and using the keyboard shortcut (cmd-shift-k) does nothing.
Is there a fix for this?
Ron

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.
Mail Feedback

Apple mail downloading old messages again

This happens to me every once in two/three months and is annoying like **** but have never been able to find situation. Here is what happens, i have 4 emails configured on my apple mail and they work just fine. I have settings where it leaves the copy of email at the server.
Now, after every few weeks it starts downloading some old emails automatically and it doesn't download all emails.. It just pick and chooses. For example, friday i had 50 unread emails and saturday evening i had 285. When i started checking my email, these are mostly old emails that i have already read but they are on server.
The oldest i got is from 12/17/2012 today is 3/17/2013 So its last 4 months but i also know its not downloading all emails in this time because then it would be like 10000 unread emails.
I can delete the ones i got again and kinda fix it temporarily but this will happen for sure again in couple of months. Any solid way to fix it forever? I care now because i only have 1 GB Storage left... lol, i know its lazy
Thanks a ton in advance.

Hello, I'd try this...
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions...
Open Mail, highlight the problem Mailbox, choose Rebuild from Mail's Mailbox menu.

Mail downloads all messages– how to stop it

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